CCI DC White climbing the Squeegee like crazy?

[Inkworks]

Am I missing something? We're moving more discharge jobs to the auto as we learn the ropes, I couldn't keep a consistent flood on the auto because we had a bead the size of a roll of nickles stuck to the squeegee, adding water seemed to make it worse? Adding more ink would fix it, but isn't really an attractive solution as it just goes in the garbage when we're done. We had 300+ grams on the 23 x 31" screen with a 14" x 14" image and minimal stroke extending past the image.

[tonypep]

Add base instead of water, this improves viscosity without sacrificing opacity;and use a winged floodbar

[ebscreen]

How much water are you using percentage wise?

Cutting with base, roughly 80/20 should help as well.

Lastly, 300 grams is about the minimum we will have in a screen. We do run all
25x36's, though that doesn't make much of a difference as long as the image fits.

[screenprintguy]

That's odd, we never have this issue, We mix 5% activator to the cci Dwhite right out of the bucket. The only other additive we add is 2% Fixer en just to be sure the color really fixes. Some people say we don't even need to do that, but it works for us and always has perfect results so we are sticking to it. It sounds like maybe your d-white is a little dehydrated right out of the bucket. I can say this, when we were buying the D-white by the single gallons, it was alot thicker than when we get it in the 5 gals, not sure why it just is, but when we go to press, it does have body in the screen, but prints through 230 mesh easily 30lbs on the squeegee pressure, little to no climbing up the squeegee. I don't like to add water as adding water adds more to the drying and obviously reduces the opacity. Where did you order it from, maybe they had it sitting for a while in stock.

[Screened Gear]

How much water are you using percentage wise?

Cutting with base, roughly 80/20 should help as well.

Lastly, 300 grams is about the minimum we will have in a screen. We do run all
25x36's, though that doesn't make much of a difference as long as the image fits.

Your adding 20 percent water to d-white??? Your saying 20 percent clear base to d-white right??? how much water?

[tonypep]

20 base no water or just a titch

[screenprintguy]

I used to do the 20% clear base 80% discharge white with Matsui, but with CCI, there is no need, it's good to go right out of the bucket smooth and bright, adding base to it only dulls it, at least from what I've seen, it's so cheap it's not work lowering the integrity of the mix imo. The reason we fell in love with the CCI Discharge white is mainly the fact that you can mix it straight with nothing added, I probably don't even need the fixer en added in, just been a habit mainly and it's such a little amount it's not that big of a deal and it's supposed to "fix" the pigment to the fibers more permanently. Obviously the final out come of your discharge whit print hinges on the shirt, color of shirt ect that you are printing on, but we love the CCI stuff it's awesome, with Matsui pigments, we are having awesome lasting results and gaining new customer base from final printing, and wearablitliy.

[ebscreen]

80/20 white/base. Maybe %5 water or retarder. Remember southeasterners, it's dry here.

The base smooths out the ink and definitely makes for a softer print out of the dryer. Cuts down
on the chalkiness that discharge white can sometimes have. Haven't seen it affect brightness at least
with the ratios we use.

[screenprintguy]

Eb that totally makes sense. It's easy to forget about ambient conditions. Most of the time it's wet wet air here, today, even after rain last night, it's bone dry, but most of the time high humidity. I'm going to try doing a mix tomorrow with some base, I would like to deliver a softer feel. I know once they wash and dry they are fine with no hand at all, but you know how customers are, they want to put the shirt on right away , especially event tees and don't realize they should really wash them first, and will only have that total zero feel if they do wash it first. I do love that CCI white though. And the CCI base, we use if for non discharge printing as well, just don't put the activator in it and it works just as well, instead of buying the clear mix base we used to get from Matsui at like $50 bucks a gall.

[Parker 1]

The only other additive we add is 2% Fixer en just to be sure the color really fixes.

Is this a CCI Product?  How does it differ from the base or the Retartder?

[Parker 1]

We use an 80/20base for our straight DC white.  We add a "titch" of water after its activated to thin it down a touch.

What emulsion are you using?  Reason I ask we will mist water into the screens prior to adding ink.  The dry emulsion would act like a spunge and soke some of the moisture out of our inks causing it to become thick.  Seems this would be worse in a dry climate.   

[Screened Gear]

We use an 80/20base for our straight DC white.  We add a "titch" of water after its activated to thin it down a touch.

What emulsion are you using?  Reason I ask we will mist water into the screens prior to adding ink.  The dry emulsion would act like a spunge and soke some of the moisture out of our inks causing it to become thick.  Seems this would be worse in a dry climate.

How many people do the spray of water on the screen before adding ink?

[Inkworks]

We bought it from Ryonet as CCI recomended them as being our closest dealer. It's obviously re-labeled from them, bubblegum scent, nice and creamy out of the bucket.

Can I cut it with Jantex base? that's all I have right now as we started with their PC kit.

We're using MacDermid Autotype 8000 emulsion dual cure with fixer. It's standing up well so far, but does get a little gummy/clammy.

In this case we didn't mist the screen with water before putting the ink on. It was actually a simple 3 colour print, we went with the CCI white under base, flash, grey and flouro-orange plastisol on top. It ran fine, we just had to keep moving. It was only 48 shirts, but we threw it on the auto just to gain experience.

The white shows in the finished design, so it wasn't a true underbase, the first time we ran the job I used a plain discharge underbase and printed a hilite white plastisol along with the other top colours, this time I figured I'd ditch the white top coat and use the CCI as a base. the prints looks good and the job ran well, but getting next to no flood with that much ink on the screen is a bummer. I thought the water would help reduce viscosity, but if anything it made it worse. Normally I'd expect 150-200 grams of ink to be plenty enough for a good flood, less with a runnier ink.

Yes I know a full white DC base isn't the best for plastisol top coats, but we flashed it pretty good. As we gain experience we'll dial down the flash and push the limits more.

Starter mix was 200 grams CCI white ink, 12grams activator, and about 5-6 grams water. We added another 100 grams of activated ink to try to get a decent flood. After 48 shirts we were getting virtually no flood with almost all the ink riding the squeegee.

We do have Jantex fixer, retarder, and binder to play with if they're compatible, also their DC and WB Bases.

[Nick Bane]

We use an 80/20base for our straight DC white.  We add a "titch" of water after its activated to thin it down a touch.

What emulsion are you using?  Reason I ask we will mist water into the screens prior to adding ink.  The dry emulsion would act like a spunge and soke some of the moisture out of our inks causing it to become thick.  Seems this would be worse in a dry climate.

How many people do the spray of water on the screen before adding ink?

I mist DC screens with water before adding inks as well.  Its almost always very dry here, especially inside the shop.  And i also do the 80white/20base and i add a bit of extra binder as well.